This week, Target announced its newest charitable giving initiative taking place on Facebook, launched for Valentine's Day. Similar to the campaign it launched last May, when the retailer asked its Facebook fans to help decide how it would divvy up $3 million amongst 10 charities, the Valentine's Day campaign asks its Facebook fans to help it divvy up $1 million to organizations, with a focus on educational programs.

2010 has just begun and already we've seen numerous reports that the job market is still looking, well ... bleak.

Guest blogger Ned Breslin is CEO of Water For People, a nonprofit international humanitarian organization that supports the development of sustainable safe drinking water resources and improved sanitation facilities in developing countries. In October 2009, Water For People announced an investment from the Case Foundation to accelerate and expand its efforts to provide innovative, sustainable water solutions in Africa.

The water sector is dominated by pictures of happy children drinking water from a tap. This is of course the goal, but is it the reality? Sadly not.

Alongside the stories of devastation and trauma due to the recent earthquake in Haiti are stories of personal and community strength, compassion and hope. It has been heartening to see the world - including individuals, businesses and institutions, governments, and the nonprofit community - rally to help this country in distress through the rapid pace and significant amount of dollars raised for relief efforts.

In the research we conducted after the first America's Giving Challenge in 2007-2008, we found that a hallmark for many successful efforts was a combination of online and offline outreach to mobilize supporters. It's no surprise that the combination of tactics beyond just online to generate donations was once again successful for many of this year's winners.

This season's issue of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP)'s publication, The Corporate Philanthropist, is out and available online and in PDF. Each issue focuses on different areas of corporate philanthropy, and this current Winter 2010 issue provides different perspectives from industry executives, leaders and experts on the question: